Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgium’s Elise Mertens on Friday advanced to the semi-finals at the Birmingham Viking Classic after defeating Naiktha Bains of Britain and Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic.
The top seeds in doubles took down the pair 6-2, 6-4 in a match played after a rain delay.
They were yesterday to face Ons Jabeur of Tunisia and Ellen Perez of Australia.
Photo: Reuters
Other quarter-final matches at the grass-court tournament were canceled due to rain.
Two Czech players were scheduled to compete yesterday, with eighth-seeded Marie Bouzkova facing CoCo Vandeweghe of the US, and Tereza Martincova taking on fourth-seeded Daria Kasatkina of Russia.
Second-seeded Jabeur was to face Anastasia Potapova of Russia, and third-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia was up against local favorite Heather Watson.
Vandeweghe, a former top 10 player, reached two Grand Slam semi-finals in 2017 and twice has been a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon.
She earned her first tour-level, main-draw victory in nearly two years on Monday by beating Kristyna Pliskova in straight sets.
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
The tiny village club of Mjallby AIF on Monday won the top tier Swedish soccer league with a 2-0 away win at IFK Gothenburg, sealing the title with three rounds of matches remaining. Jacob Bergstrom and Tom Pettersson scored the goals in Mjallby’s 20th win in 27 league games. Mjallby has a population of fewer than 1,400 people and plays in an outdated 6,000-seat stadium with stands weathered by the winds of the Baltic Sea. “It’s a huge relief to experience this now, a relief with three games to go,” said Anders Torstensson, a former army officer and secondary-school teacher who coaches the
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got
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